


when the smoke clears

by JaceReeal



Category: The Chronicles of Nick - Sherrilyn Kenyon
Genre: BE carefull, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Blood, all in all its a pretty 'not so happy' fic, caleb dissociates towards the end, implied panic attack, it was written in the first draft but i decided not to include it in the end, its just drawing blood from a scab and burning skin with a ciggerette butt, not written as a ship but you can interpret it as one if you'd like, nothing too detailed, selfharm, sorry haha, theres a weird focus on a fork for a few paragraphs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29262351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceReeal/pseuds/JaceReeal
Summary: Two boys struggle with destiny and what it means.-----How many times had he seen people fall to their evil cores? How many people had he watched turn jaded and bitter? Too many. Far too many to have any faith left that he and Nick could fight their destinies.Hell, even if they tried to deny it. Tried to be better. If they dared to put down their rage sharpened swords and embrace hope instead. It always ended in death. Its the reason so many of them have stopped trying to love. Have closed themselves off from the world, stuck only with their own thoughts for company. After all, the loneliest emotion is grief.-----""A really good story. Read it" - Nell"  - My friend Nell, when asked what I should use in my description. Thanks Nell <3
Relationships: Nick Gautier & Caleb Malphas
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	when the smoke clears

**Author's Note:**

> This took me almost 4 whole months to finish, woo! I'm really proud of it!! There are still somethings that I feel like i should rewrite and some dialogue I could write better but I know if I don't let go if this fic now, I'll never end up finishing and posting it. I might come back later and edit it but for now its completed. 
> 
> As said in the notes though, this is pretty heavy. Stay safe and be mindful of the tags when reading. If there's anything I missed let me know. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy <3

Caleb came home to an extra pair of shoes placed next to his front door. Old and ratted, whatever brand listed on the side, long worn off. The front light had been on but the lights inside were off.

In the kitchen there was a full plate of leftover spaghetti on the table, presumably heated and now cooled off again. A familiar bag sat on the stool, its contents open and strewn around the plate. Papers, pencils, textbooks. Scribbles ran down the margins of the papers, the rest covered in small crooked writing. 

Caleb flipped the pages over and closed the textbooks.

He made his way upstairs. The house was big, with more rooms than he would need, living alone. The faint smell of smoke led him over to a guest room. The window was propped open. A pair of socks and a jacket layed on the bed. He placed his hand on the door lighting up the sigils on the wall.

They all glowed a faint yellow, confirming his suspicions. Not an intruder.

He shrugged off his bag next to the socks and jacket and headed over to the adjoined bathroom. 

He washed his face and then his hands. Digging between the fingernails and over his palm lines again and again until his hands were red and stinging. Turning off the tap, he stepped back, letting the water run down his arms and neck. The water making him shiver as it left cool trails down his skin. He wiped his hands on a towel, hissing at the red lines now carved into his palms. 

The towel got thrown into the hamper as he made his way to the window. There he hesitated. Debating whether or not he should go and confront his friend. 

He'd done this before. Days where Nick came home before him and camped up on the roof. Sometimes space was what Nick needed, other days he sought comfort. He hesitated not knowing what today could be. It was Nick's voice though, calling out a greeting that helped him decide.

“Hey Cay.”

Like a door opening, it's all the assurance Caleb needed before he stepped onto the bed and threw his legs over the window frame. He stood on the ledge of the window and looked up at the roof.

Nick was sitting there, knees crossed, a cigarette in one hand, twirling a fork in the other. The fork Caleb assumed he got from the kitchen, he remembered that the spaghetti plate had no utensil, but he can’t fathom how he got a hold of a cigarette. Caleb knew he didn't have any in the house.

Nick didn't look at him, instead, he took a long drag. Caleb pursed his lips and hosted himself up next to him, letting his legs fall over the side of the roof. It's cold. The roof was wet under his legs. The slight wind causing his hands to sting. Nick either doesn't notice or doesn't care, legs folded crisscross loosely. His left ankle under his right knee. Nick was wearing a t-shirt. Seemingly unfazed by the cold. The shirt was loose on him, one of Calebs maybe? and it hung off a shoulder. The sun was hidden beneath clouds, the faint scent of wet concrete as expected after rain, hung in the air.

Caleb shrugged off his jacket, laying it underneath him, and resumed his position, legs over the side of the roof and elbows on his knees, leaning forward to stare intently at Nick. He knows not to press. Nick will talk when he wants to, until then he waits.

Nick looks hollowed out, dark circles ring his eyes, and his lips chapped. There are faint bruises on his jaw and right eye. From the fight from last week Caleb assumed. He wondered if Nick had used glamor magic to cover them up. 

Caleb hadn't noticed them till today.

Nick exhales a plume of smoke and finally turns to him.

“Thought you’d be gone longer.” He said. His expression was unreadable.

Nick hadn't come to today’s practice. Leaving the school the second the bell rang.

“We got out early, Coach had an appointment or something. He was pretty angry that you didn't show up, asked me why you didn't come.” Caleb replied. 

Nick didn't fall for the bait. Just took another drag. 

“Pretty sure Stone was distracted all practice because you weren't there.”

Nick made a sour face at that but again didn't comment. Caleb tried once more.

“Kody was asking where you were.” 

He looked at Nick expectantly. Nick didn't hold his stare, ignoring him as he tapped the fork on his knee. He was wearing ripped jeans Caleb noticed. Though the rips didn't look like they were there for fashion, more like some monster had ripped the jeans during battle. The frayed ends were slightly pink. The skin where Nick was tapping was scabbed over. 

“I didn't feel like going to practice.” That was what Nick finally said. No give to what that meant from his emotionless tone. It could mean anything. 

“Why?”

At this Nick frowned. His brows came together and his lips turned downward. He was silent for a minute.

“Felt like shit. Too much pressure I guess, started thinking about the prophecy again.”

He feels a pang of sympathy. To know that the faith of the world rests on your shoulders was a great burden to place on a 16-year-old. 

Nick continues. “I mean, it's just a lot. All these people who are centuries older than me don't believe I can do good. They all scoff at the idea of a good Malachai, it's kinda hard to focus in class when you have the world's judgement hanging off your back.” 

He turns to Caleb and Caleb lets his eyes flit back to his face. He seems to be waiting for him to say something. 

How do you tell someone that they won't destroy the world when everything points to that as their pre-written destiny? How do you lie to someone and offer false comfort when you know it won't last? He doesn't know. So he says nothing instead. 

Nick nodded, like he was expecting Calebs silence, his face pulled in frustration. He closed his eyes and turned his head back to the sky. His expression held so much. Too much in fact, so Caleb drew his eyes back down to Nicks’s tapping. The fork glinted in the low light.

“My own mother expects me to unexpectedly go crazy. Do crime and vicious acts. And she doesn't even know what I am. Tell me is it that obvious, Cay? Is there “huge jerk'' written on my forehead that apparently everyone except me sees?? Something I've failed to notice?” 

"Nick no-" he starts softly. 

Cutting him off, Nick let out a frustrated sigh and continued, gaining volume. 

“Even you and Kody seem to be waiting for me to flip, to turn evil and - and I don't know! Rip off your heads or something. I'm not- I'm not evil, Caleb.” He taps the fork further at his knee, the scab ripping. “You told me I was evil.”

Caleb's stomach turns as he remembers their conversation a few days prior. He didn't know Nick was still thinking of it. “I didn't say you were evil, Nick. I never said that, don’t go putting words in my mouth. I said you had the possibility of going down that path. I've seen too many people try to fight their destinies and fail. It doesn't give me much faith. We all end up succumbing to the darkness at one point.” 

He keeps his eyes on Nick's knee not willing to make eye contact. The scab was starting to bleed. Blood glinted off the metal fork. 

He thinks of Lilliana. Of the life he once had, the short break in time when he was able to live in peace. It didn't last. It never did. 

Next to him, Nick hissed in something close to anger. 

“You don't believe that- _please_ tell me you don't believe that.” The hand gripping the fork suddenly stills, Caleb watches in morbid fascination as the blood drips down the fork. “Cay- Caleb. We're not evil. We don't have to-” Nick lets out a frustrating breath of air. His hands flying up.

He hears Nick take another drag. 

“Do you think we're all time bombs? That we can't control ourselves? That we’ll explode and just turn fucking angry and hostile at the world? You don’t even have a _little_ hope that we’ll be able to fight that?” Nick's voice crept onto a more desperate tone.

Caleb thinks of hope. A memory surfaces, Lilliana dancing in a meadow of daisies, her blonde hair glinting in the sun. He had said something, some joke, he doesn't remember what, it wasn't important. Just how she had thrown her head back and laughed. Full and bright. It was a lively laugh. He would do anything to hear her laugh like that again. 

“I don’t think, I _know_ Nick. I've seen it too many times. It _always_ ends the same. We can’t fight it. Sure we can try, we can lie to ourselves. It doesn't last, Nick.” 

He remembers the feeling of blood on his hands as he carried her limp body. Her lifeless eyes and blood-covered face. 

He looks away from the fork, a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Trust me I know.”

Nick's face falls. He closes his eyes and leans away from Caleb. His lips pressed into a sharp line. 

He thinks of the years spent under demon’s control. Each demon “master” worse than the first. He thinks of Nick’s laugh. How it lights up the room. He thinks of how easy it is to see Adarian in Nick’s face. He thinks of battle and its hardships. Of his father, of Cherise, of Kody. He thinks for a long time before he turns towards Nick again. Any other day and Caleb would have helped Nick, offered him comfort instead of cold truth. But Caleb was tired. So tired of having this repeated argument with Nick. So he stayed silent. 

Nick’s eyes are glowing amber as he stares at the sky. His fists clenched, shaking, on his knees. The fork glinting off the faint light coming from the still glowing cigarette end. 

Nick doesn't say anything.

So he doesn't either. Instead, he reaches over and taps the hand that holds the cigarette. Nick loosens it and Caleb slides the cigarette out. It was slightly smoldering. He flicked it off the roof. 

Nick closed his fist again. Another appeared. Slotted between his index and middle finger. 

That answered the question of where the cigarettes came from. 

Caleb wondered how long Nick had known he could summon those, he wondered why he hadn't noticed. Surely it couldn't have been a recent thing as Nick held the cigarette with the ease of someone who’d be smoking for years. He watched as Nick twirled the cigarette, his eyes were still watching the sky. The hand holding the fork had loosened. No longer a clenched fist. His posture though, was still stiff. 

He raised the cigarette to his mouth then paused. His eyes flitted over to Caleb with something akin to anxiousness.

He didn't know what Nick saw in his expression but whatever it was seemed to pull Nick into deep thought. His normally blue eyes had turned black, reminding him again of Adarian. Caleb suppressed a shiver.

He held himself still as Nick contemplated. On what? He didn't know. 

“Want a cigarette?” He asked at last, his voice hoarse. It didn't seem like what he had wanted to ask.

Caleb looked to the hand twirling the cylinder. Round and round and round. 

“These can kill you, you know?” He said, yet opened his hand. 

Another bad decision added to the ever growing list. 

Nick passed it over, curling his fingers around his for a brief second before pulling back again leaving the stick in Caleb's outstretched hand. His fingers were cold.

“Better now then later,” Nick replied to Caleb's warning. Upon seeing the unamused look on Caleb's face though, he was quick to add. “I've heard it all, I know, I know.” His tone turned defensive but stayed flat. “No need to go “mama Cay” on me. I’m well aware of the effects. While some kids got sung lullabies, I was raised with facts about addictive substances.”

Then like he was reciting from memory.

“Cigarettes are one of the leading causes of death in the USA. Responsible for over 480,000 deaths per year. One cigarette contains enough nicotine to get you addicted, around 10 milligrams of nicotine.-”

“Jesus christ,” Caleb eyed him hesitantly.

“-Cigarettes contain urea, a form of cat urine. Etcetera, etcetera….All the fun facts about cigarettes are permanently branded into my brain, man. Mike used to smoke, we would try to get him to stop with all these weird facts." He shrugs. "It's stuck.” 

Caleb muses over that. Mike was one of the boys in the group the night Nick had gotten shot. He notices Nick didn't sound angry when he said his name, rather his tone was slightly wistful. He decides he doesn't want to unpack any of that tonight and turns his attention instead to the cigarette in his hand. He balances it on his palm as the facts Nick had spouted off rattle around his head.

"These can _kill _you." He repeats himself.__

____

Nick gave a frustrated sigh. “You’re a demon Caleb, I’m the Malachai,” He spat out the word Malachai like it was venomous. “Immortality remember?"

____

Nick pursed his lips and then shivered, looking straight at him. " _It_ won’t kill you."

____

He had emphasized the "it" instead of the "kill".

____

That, despite an attempt to help him feel better, made him feel like he was punched. The “ _I will_ ” gone unsaid but clearly implied to be there, if Nick's bitter expression was anything to go by. His lips pursed and dark eyes now downcast. He felt himself go stiff in shock. 

____

Nick didn't seem to notice. Or maybe he did and chose not to comment on it. He instead put his hand over Caleb’s, tugging the cigarette out of his clenched hand. Parallel to what Caleb had done minutes before to Nick. He didn't throw it off the roof though, instead brought it to his own mouth. 

____

The wrong side though, Caleb thought absently. His heartbeat sounded loud in his ears. The orange side was facing Caleb and the part you should light, in Nick's mouth. 

____

Pulling it out and giving it a twirl he pushed the proper end, the orange side, to Caleb's lips. slotting it crookedly in his mouth. 

____

Caleb in turn held his breath, completely still. 

____

Then as quickly he had come closer he was gone. Caleb sat there.

____

Nick though seemed unfazed, as he summoned another and stuck it in his own mouth. He lit the cig with a small flame from his finger, pulled a shallow drag and turned towards the sky again.

____

Caleb was still frozen. He forced his hand to go grab the cig. Turning it over he saw the end was smoldering, faintly orange. It was like there were balloons in his lungs slowly expanding.

____

“What the fuck.” He managed to croak out. 

____

“Flame hands, human torch. So it makes sense I can blow out fire too.” He turned, pointing the fork at him. Grinning, he continued. “Pretty cool, huh?" And although he was smiling, his eyes were dark. 

____

Was he trying to get a rise out of him? Did he want to get Caleb angry? Nick was self destructive in the worst way when he was struggling. Was this him trying to hurt himself, through Caleb? Did he not notice how world-shattering what he implied was? Was that the point? Caleb didn't know. 

____

“Why-” He starts then stops. He doesn't know what he wants to ask. He doesn't know what he should ask.

____

Nick looks at him neutrally. Assessing his reaction maybe? 

____

“Would be just our luck though if this gave us lung cancer.” He said instead, voice cracking. It was easier to make a joke than to analyze what Nick had meant with the " _It won't kill you._ " 

____

Beside him Nick laughed bitterly, turning away. He knew he said the wrong thing. He knew that a joke was not the reaction Nick wanted, that he didn't fool him. That the joke didn't land.

____

He wanted to scream. To yell and run away from the doomed boy next to him. He wanted to shake Nick in anger till he promised to never bring that up again. To force him to forget the future. To forget that Nick was Caleb's one-way ticket to a grave, six feet under.

____

He spun the cigarette in his hand slowly feeling bile build up in his throat. 

____

He couldn't say any of that. It wouldn't be fair of him, after all, he hadn’t sugar-coated Nick's future to him even when he had clearly required comfort. _Why should he let Nick sugarcoat it for him?_

____

Caleb took a drag. The cigarette was cherry flavored, the smoke quickly filling up his lungs. He blew out towards Nick. 

____

Nick moved to the side to avoid it. 

____

They sat in silence, Caleb looked at Nick. At his hand, at his eyes, at his legs. Trying to ground himself. He looked until he couldn't anymore, then shifted his searching gaze to the sky instead. 

____

The sky had darkened considerably. Grey deepening to velvet indigo. The clouds had slowly disappeared leaving a blank wall of blue. He ached for the days he could glance at the sky and catch sight of the stars. The stars would cover the entire view, like someone had spilled salt over the cosmos. He’d never really cared much for it, someone as old as him stopped seeing wonder in the features of the earth. 

____

No, the stars had never caught his attention. 

____

It wasn't until he moved in with Lilliana that he paid any mind to the sky at night. She would drag him outside and sit him down. Would link their hands together and point out the constellations to him. Sometimes she’d create her own, making up stories of epic heroes and heroines. He’d enjoyed listening to her musings, how she was able to bring beauty to the world's smallest things. She had laughed unbelieving when he had told her, completely smitten, that she was his hero. 

____

They would sit up high some days and gaze at the sky. Talking and taking in the sights. Sit there until the morning sunrise had turned the sky the color of fire, bright orange and red. Pressed close together, shoulder to shoulder. Hand in hand. 

____

He became hyper-aware of Nick's shoulder pressed to his. How this mirrored the nights he would spend with Liliana. 

____

His hands moved jittery, tapping on his thighs in fast random patterns.

____

The sky looked so big, so vast. The sounds of the night mixed together. A quiet static. 

____

“Sorry about before.” Caleb didn't know why he said it. But suddenly the silence seemed stifling. Pressing in on his lungs. He felt like a building had fallen on him, crushing his ribs. That he was buried under rubble and concrete. He glanced at Nick from the corner of his eye.

____

Nick lifted a brow at him but didn't speak. 

____

"I didn't listen nor try to help, major asshole move as I just came in and sorta threw all your hope down and then stepped all over it.” He shrugged, raising the cigarette to his mouth again. “I'm not gonna sugar coat life for you, but I probably could have explained myself better.”

____

If Nick wanted anger from him, Caleb wouldn't give him the satisfaction. 

____

He didn't like the idea of Nick believing he didn't have faith in him being good. Caleb did. Nick being good was like a fact of the world. Right there next to the sky being blue and the grass being green. Nick was good. Anyone could see it. It was apparent in his smile and his laugh. In the way, he talked and walked. Nick Gautier was a good person.

____

Ambrose Malachai was not.

____

And that was a fact he had to live with. That his best friend would one day become an unrecognizable monster. That the boy next to him would snap his neck. 

____

He exhaled the smoke and moved away from Nick, so their shoulders were no longer touching. Caleb's skin was crawling. _Nick was here and present-day problems are what matter_ he tried to remind himself. The future could wait. 

____

It would _have_ to wait.

____

Nick seemed to think on his apology. His posture had eased when he had said sorry but he shivered when Caleb had moved away. From the cold or from the lack of contact he didn't know. His hand fiddled anxiously with the fork. 

____

He sat there waiting for Nick to respond, feeling cold, tired, and so, _so_ distant. Stuck in a loop of the past. He wished Nick would say something, anything, and help quiet the ringing in his ears. 

____

“Okay.” Nick said at last. 

____

Caleb frowned. “Okay?”

____

"Yeah." Nick dropped the fork onto the roof, uncrossing his legs. Mimicking Caleb's earlier position. Elbows on knees, feet dangling off the roof, head leaned forward. 

____

He was barefoot, Caleb realized. 

____

There was a small bruise on his left elbow. A faint mix of blue and yellow, the size of a thumbprint. Maybe a week old? Caleb wanted to touch it. Help ground himself. Focus on the boy beside him instead of the memories flashing montage style in his head.

____

"Okay, then." 

____

He continued to stare, not willing to conjure up the effort to look away. Eyes glued to Nick's face once more. His eyes were a dull maroon now. Redish, brown. The color of dried blood. The bruises on his right eye standing out in the faint light from his cigarette. 

____

Caleb felt like he was floating, tethered to the ground only by a thread. His face felt tight from the cold wind, leaving him slightly shivering despite his thick hoodie. Not for the first time that night did he wonder how Nick wasn't cold. 

____

Nick sat like the cold didn't bother him. The wind toying lazily with his hair and swaying the loose sleeves on his tee. The parts of his face that weren't bruised were pink. 

____

He stared and stared and stared. And not once did Nick turn to look back at him. Nick’s eyes were watery, his lips trembling. He was staring at the sky, eyes glassy but focused and intense. He took periodical drags from his slowly burning down cigarette, his hands shaking slightly. The faint smell of nicotine hung in the air.

____

Caleb felt so light, like if he let it, the wind could carry him away. Flown down the breeze. He sucked in a breath and held it in a desperate attempt to feel grounded. And when that didn't work he filled his lungs up with smoke pulling another drag, almost coughing on the sour and bitter taste.

____

How many times had he seen people fall to their evil cores? How many people had he watched turn jaded and bitter? Too many. Far too many to have any faith left that he and Nick could fight their destinies.

____

Hell, even if they tried to deny it. Tried to be better. If they dared to put down their rage sharpened swords and embrace hope instead. It always ended in death. It's the reason so many of them have stopped trying to love. Have closed themselves off from the world, stuck only with their own thoughts for company. After all, the loneliest emotion is grief. 

____

He and Nick struggled in different ways. Where Nick refused to accept his future, Caleb found himself stuck in the past. 

____

Trying to fight your destiny was like signing a death contract. Not for yourself but for all your innocent loved ones sure to be caught in fate's cruel plan. Caleb had tested the universe when he tried to settle down and live a life of peace. In payment, the universe took his lovers life and the only joy he had found since birth. 

____

Lilliana. Lilliana. Lilliana.

____

Blonde hair, laughter. A warm embrace. Then, blood. Oh god, so much blood, dripping into puddles from bruised and torn skin. 

____

God, what he wouldn't do to bring her back. 

____

What he wouldn't do to be released from destiny. But as sure as the facts being that the sky was blue, the grass green, and Nick good, he was bad. Damned to be rotten and ruined. A shell of a soldier that once was. An empty husk of a man that once loved. 

____

Good gods, he could fight. He could fight tooth and nail. Fight like someone trying to survive, someone with a will to live, to be alive. He could fight with all he had. But it would never be able to change his preplanned fate. 

____

And he had accepted that. 

____

He had the experience to back it up. Fighting destiny could not work. 

____

So when Nick pressed the butt of his cigarette to his own waist, burning his own skin with shaky hands, Caleb did nothing to stop him, and when he got up, Caleb kept his eyes on the place where he had sat, unfocused and blurry.

____

The ringing in his ears hadn't faded yet.

____

And maybe that's why when Nick said something, his voice sounded like it was flowing through water. Slightly distorted and faraway. Incoherent. Additional static being drowned out by the ringing in his ears.

____

Caleb kept still, he kept silent. And only when Nick left, shoulders shaking with tears, down from the roof and back to the room, Caleb let himself fall backward. Laying out on the wet, cold roof. The wind was stronger and the sky darker. 

____

He reached out and gripped his own arm. His hand slid down his forearm, pulling up his sleeve to loosely circle his fingers around his own wrist. 

____

Clumsy trying to find his heartbeat. Thumb pressing between the veins below his thumb.

____

The cigarette, it was still in his grasp? Rolled out of his hand and into the wet roof below him. 

____

He tried to focus on his pulse. Tried desperately to get his thoughts stored. To get some solid grip on his life as the memories of the past raced in his head. To get out of the scenes in his head. To stop thinking about Lilliana, about Nick, about blood and burns and torn skin.

____

**Author's Note:**

> I figured they were a little too OOC, but that's alright, whats a fanfic if the characters aren't a little bit based on the author?
> 
> Comment your fave parts and dissect this like an english teacher, please.


End file.
